Exclusive | Live-streaming here to stay as Chinese travel business almost ‘fully recovers’ from Covid-19, Trip.com co-founder says
- Trip.com Group co-founder James Liang’s live-streamed video campaigns, where he often dons traditional folk costumers, have made him an internet star
- He has sold US$294 million of travel packages and hotel room bookings over 25 live streams
When China’s coronavirus cases stabilised in March and domestic tourism began to resume, Trip.com Group’s co-founder and executive chairman James Liang Jianzhang traded his formal business attire for ancient Chinese clothing, known as hanfu, to host live-streamed shows selling travel packages and hotel room bookings.
Liang’s entertaining video campaigns, incorporating traditional Chinese performance arts such as crosstalk and Sichuan “face-changing” opera, have made him an internet celebrity.
His 25 live streams on various platforms have netted Trip.com Group – China’s biggest online travel services provider – over 2 billion yuan (US$294 million), according to the Shanghai-based company formerly known as Ctrip.com. Most of the orders were for presale deals, where customers purchase travel packages or bookings in advance to be redeemed at a later date.
“There was no business for the company anyway, so we started the [live-streaming] show,” Liang told the Post in an interview last week. “Live-streaming presales were a big part of the business because regular business was down by a lot.”
